文学与城市的双向构建——评《文学中的城市》

理查德·利罕在《文学中的城市》中提出的研究范式有别于传统的城市文学研究,后者侧重的是反映论,而前者侧重的是再现论,其既关注城市的发展变迁对文学文类、叙事和修辞等方面的影响,也关注文学对城市的想象性构建。这一视角更适合于去阐释城市和文学的复杂性关联,对目前的城市文学研究有诸多的启发性意义。     

Experimental evaluation of a humanities program

This research sought to determine the effects of a one-hour humanities lecture concerning midwest architectural preservation on a group of college undergraduates. Effects were assessed by a semantic differential procedure which revealed two factors in a pre-treatment trial. A four-group design required administration of the instrument to two groups one week prior to the lecture, and to all groups one week following the lecture. ANOVA and post hoc analyses revealed significant changes in the experimental group's “semantic space” on three of eight architectural concepts which were assessed. The results provide an empirical basis for the success of the program which the humanities people had “known” all along.     

Measuring corporate social performance: The problem of values

Debates over the social performance of corporations have carried with them implicit evaluations of that performance. The apparent subjectivity and bias of these informal evaluations has led to the development of more formalized corporate social performance assessment methodologies — social audits. In this paper it is argued that these social audits are also influenced by subjectivity and bias considerations; and thru the case study of a social audit of a corporate safety program, the underlying value issues at the core of these influences are explored. The value implications of the various social audit methodologies in use are discussed; and several value sensitive stages/elements of social audit research and evaluation research in general are identified. Recommendations set forth for minimizing the negative consequences of value-influenced evaluations are a value-explicit evaluation approach, greater standardization of evaluation procedures, a dialectic evaluation approach, and better informed evaluation consumers.     

Individualization and Prevention

SUMMARY

In 1905, Massachusetts General Hospital initiated the first medical social work program in the United States. Based on the writings of its leaders, this paper presents the early history of medical social work in the United States. Inspired by developments in European health care that emphasized the community context of disease, medical social work pioneers saw a need to individualize the patient while also promoting public health measures in the community, improving the patient's environment to eliminate the causes of disease. In addition, since they served patients because of their diseases rather than their poverty, medical social workers were among the first to provide social work services to the non-poor. In spite of their emphasis on environmental change, many of early medical social work leaders had an anti-institutional bias; they were suspicious of large-scale solutions for what they saw as fundamentally individual problems. Consequently, methods for promoting individual adaptation developed more rapidly than methods for promoting environmental change. Ironically, the medicalization of social problems in contemporary times has resulted in a focus on individual pathology rather than social and lifestyle causation in health, even as the rising cost and complexity of the system challenges health care consumers in the United States. Reaffirming the environmental emphasis of medical social work pioneers provides a way for today's health care social workers to incorporate environmental modification into their practice and promote the health of all citizens.     

向自然寻求救赎——评理查德·杰弗里斯的《捡橡果的孩子》

理查德·杰弗里斯是英国著名的自然派作家,其散文名篇《捡橡果的孩子》以客观、真实的笔调描绘了一个乡村小男孩的悲剧一生。杰弗里斯同情小男孩不幸身世的同时,揭露了转型期的英国社会中人性和人际关系异化,同时表达了向自然回归和重建和谐健康人际关系的深层意蕴。